“She’s just a big cry baby,” she evades.
My eyebrows rise. “Helped her how?”
“I only gave her a little shove, nothing serious. But she went crying to the teacher.”
“It’s true, Papá,” Rosa adds solemnly. “Claire deserved it.”
It’s unbelievable how much I love them. “Okay, I’m glad you’re sticking together, but you know what Ms. Josson’s going to tell me, right?”
Their gazes scatter, suddenly finding the pavement under our feet extremely interesting. “We’ve talked about this. The school has a zero-tolerance policy. You don’t want Daniela to have to go to a different school, do you?”
“No!” they squawk together, shocked by the idea.
“Then you guys have to find a way to use words instead of pushing or hitting, okay? I know it’s hard, but that’s what we’ve got to do. ¿Sale?” Agreed?
“Sale,” they repeat in unison.
Getting to my feet, I take Carmen and Rosa’s hands, wishing I had another one for Daniela. Then after that ridiculous thought, another more practical one hits me. “Carmen, why aren’t you wearing your glasses?” Unlike Daniela, who only needs them to read the board, Carmen needs to be wearing hers all the time.
“Oh, uh, I forgot them at home,” she says so quietly that I almost don’t hear her.
Frowning down at her, I wonder how many times she’s ‘forgotten’ them in the last few weeks. I suppress a sigh. First things first. Ms. Josson gives it to me straight and I listen politely and keep my mouth shut until it’s time to reassure her that this kind of thing won’t happen again.
The rest of the day doesn’t go particularly well either. Homework time, during which I’m usually at work, is stressful. Daniela seems baffled by the concept of subtraction and doesn’t take kindly to my attempts to explain it to her, which leaves me frustrated. The mounting tension lessens when Carmen takes over the explanation. That is until I realize that Daniela is just getting Carmen to do the work for her. When I start to lose my temper and insist she do it herself, there’s a total meltdown with noisy tears and sobs.
Then later, Mari and Desiree get into it over a missing sweater, and I lose my shit again, telling them both to grow up. But worst of all are my grandmother’s eyes which follow me around, heavy with what feels like suspicion and disappointment.
Then, to add insult to injury, none of it is enough to keep her from my thoughts. Ellie’s always there, lurking, lying in wait for me to lower my defenses and jump to the forefront. The ambush comes when the house is quiet and I’m supposed to be sleeping. Instead, I’m staring up at the dark living room ceiling, hating that resentment isn’t fueling me anymore.
Without that fuel, there’s only a sick feeling in my gut telling me that maybe she was right about a lot of what she laid on me. That I was more of a douche than I realized, especially when it finally comes to me that we did have plans that night. She was going to make me dinner and I’d been so caught up in my own shit that it hadn’t even crossed my mind, not when I was at Jorgie’s place and not when I was out getting wasted with my friends. If only I hadn’t been so careless and self-absorbed, I could have avoided putting that wrecked expression on her face with a simple phone call or even a fucking text message.
The sick feeling only grows when I get a call on Tuesday afternoon from Pamela at the office, telling me that a nice girl came to drop off an envelope for me. At first I’m stumped. When I question her further, she tells me conspiratorially that she thinks there’s money inside. The fifty dollars Ellie owes me. She’s really going to cut me out of her life.
It gets worse as the week goes on. I barely sleep, and when I do, my dreams are full of her. She’s so beautiful, under me, over me, coming on my cock in every possible position my brain can come up with. I don’t know how many times I wake in the night with my hand wrapped around my very hard dick, jacking myself and then feeling like shit about it after the euphoria fades. But it’s not only the sex. I miss her; her company, her laugh, her advice. God, the guilt for screwing things up so badly and the resulting exhaustion grate on me to the point that I’m snapping at my guys at work and my family at home. I can barely stand myself.
By Thursday evening, I guess my grandmother has had enough of my bad temper because while I’m loading the dishwasher, she gets my attention with a firm, “Mijo.”
I look up.
“Please, sit down.” She gestures to the kitchen table.
Groaning internally, I slide onto my chair, sure I’m about to get a lecture. I should have guessed something was up when she sent the girls out to the back yard to play after dinner.
“Tell me what’s going on.”
I blow out a tired breath. “Nothing’s going on, Abuela.”
“Is it your job? Is it not working out?”
“The job is fine.”
“Then what is it? You’ve been peevish all week. Are you worried about Lolita? Because I –”
“Definitely not,” I say with finality, because the situation with Lolita, who I haven’t heard from since the girls’ choir debacle, is the last thing I want to think about right now.
She sighs heavily as if she doesn’t appreciate my lack of cooperation in her quest to get to the bottom of my peevishness. “Is it Jorge? Is he causing problems for you?”
I shake my head impatiently, already weary of this. “No more than usual.”
“It’s a woman then,” she announces.
My eyes flip up to hers in surprise. “What? No!” Except I can feel an embarrassing flush creep up my neck.
Inexplicably, my grandmother grins like I’ve given her the world. “That’s wonderful news, mijo.”
Despite the further denial that’s on the tip of my tongue, my disbelief at her reaction gets the better of me. “How’s that?”
“A woman is exactly what you need.”
Say what now? My grandmother and any woman that I need don’t belong in the same thought, let alone in a sentence that’s spoken aloud.
“Yes,” she says, her enthusiasm gaining ground. “A novia. So wonderful.”
Good grief. Not just a woman, but a girlfriend now? “There’s no novia, Abuela.”
“I suppose not. Not with the way you’ve been moping around all week. What happened? Does she not care for you as you do for her?”
I balk. “Who said anything about caring?”
“Please, mijo,” she says like I’m twelve. “If you didn’t care for her, you wouldn’t be this out of sorts.”
Exasperated, I tell her, “I’m not out of sorts. I’m . . .” I don’t know. What am I? “It doesn’t matter what I am. We’re not right for each other.”
“Oh? Why do you say that?”
“I . . . we’re . . .” I flounder.
“Why don’t you tell me about her? What’s her name?”
A heavy pause hangs between us. I don’t see what good can come from talking about this, but my grandmother is not a woman who can be put off. “Her name’s Ellie,” I finally admit.
She smiles. “And?”